Chapter 9 Bone Apple Tea
BONE APPLE TEA
BAZ
There were questionable stains on the bare mattress.
Even more dubious was the van it was located in.
The previous owner was a kidnapper. Something I only now realized.
Maybe I shouldn’t assume, but as I woke up, my boot knocked over a bucket filled with zip ties, duct tape, and an extra pair of license plates.
General world knowledge wasn’t something I excelled at, but I did know a hell of a lot about violent crimes.
It was the great common denominator at the asylum.
I could hear Doreen’s voice from group therapy at Verfallen, asking the dead van owner questions in her southern drawl.
Why did you kidnap people, Gerald? Mmm hmm.
Right. And how do you think it made your victims feel when there was never any candy?
They were probably disappointed. Go through all the trouble of being kidnapped and no Hershey's.
Although there were likely worse things about being kidnapped than not getting candy. At least the only people I held captive were dead.
Nemo, Bree, and Orson climbed out of the van, unaware I was doing anything beyond moving in my sleep. We must have just arrived. Hard to believe we actually made it to our destination after all the trouble. I closed my eyes as they huddled outside the open slide door, mumbling.
“How many hours are left before the injection changes him?”
“Twenty.”
“Has he seemed off to you? Ever since—”
“Leaving the asylum?”
“I was going to say since his sister wiped her memories of him.” I popped my eyes open and figured that was a good place to interrupt them.
“He’s going to try to run,” Nemo said. I slammed my eyes shut again and tried to even out my breathing.
“Run?” Bree asked. “What makes you think he’d do that?”
“Instincts. And I know him,” Nemo said. It was becoming harder to pretend I was asleep. I could sense them staring at me now as they kept discussing me. Every breath felt like a giveaway.
“Maybe it’s because he thinks he’s going to kill you both,” Orson added. It didn’t pass me by that he left himself off my worry list. Aww, did he think I wanted him dead?
“That’s ridiculous. We’re immune. We’ll stay immune,” Bree said.
“Maybe,” Orson responded. “Maybe not.”
“Don’t say that,” Bree whispered.
“You need to be prepared. Twenty hours may be all you have left to touch him.”
“Don’t let him out of our sight,” Nemo grumbled.
“Where’s he going to go?” Orson asked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, and he doesn’t know how to survive outside Verfallen.” They didn’t say anything. I counted the seconds, timing my inhales and exhales as I waited for more.
“You can stop pretending to sleep,” Nemo said. “We can all hear your heartbeat.”
I opened my eyes. Going off their expressions, I looked the same way I felt. Which was to say, like shit. Bree was concerned, Nemo was angry, and Orson was vaguely disgusted. Before anyone could ask me about my feelings, I distracted them.
“I’m ready to talk about the Oedipus Complex again,” I rasped to Orson. “Private session.”
“Now that I’ve met your sister, I have a better direction for our conversation.
” He raised one eyebrow. I rolled off the mattress and worked my way slowly to the door.
Every bone in my body felt displeased to be inside me.
I tried to remember how Bree had described this process before.
She mentioned aches. I didn’t ache. I burned.
My bones were long, scorching embers that left me grinding my teeth.
I was going to chip a tooth before this was over.
Every movement stoked the fire. There was no question as to why.
It was the increasingly deadly venom running through my body.
Others would likely find it ironic if my bones couldn’t withstand my own venom.
I wondered briefly if I’d melt in that case.
Nemo reached out to help me out of the van. I reacted with panic, jerking backwards so hard that I fell on my ass. They all went still, staring at me with widening eyes.
“Well, that tanked the mood,” I grumbled.
Flinching revealed far too much. Which shouldn’t matter at this point, and with these people.
But a lifetime of manipulative psychopathic roommates ingrained the cold dread of revealing personal things unintentionally.
Like the fact I cared about all of them.
When I got out of the van, I patted Nemo a few times on the arm so we could all move on from that embarrassing mishap. I could still touch them—for now, at least—and I was going to enjoy that until the bitter end.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“My cabin in the woods. We’ll hunker down for a while,” Orson told us.
“Our new home?” I took a look around.
“For a while.”
“Home,” I said. It didn’t sound right. Surrounding us was an overwhelming number of trees.
Nemo peered at them with a sense of wonder.
His nostrils flared as he took in the smell.
Desire shone in his dark eyes. He was never supposed to be locked in a concrete hole. This is where he was meant to thrive.
He rolled his shoulders and an excited smile bloomed on his face. Then it was suddenly swallowed by distress.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking for gas masks and dart guns in the woods.
“I lived my entire life in a cage.” His gaze swept the woods with a combination of longing and loss. Momentarily, I felt uncharacteristic guilt for insisting we stayed at the asylum after we broke our restraints. Then again, I wasn’t the one who created and raised him in Verfallen.
Doctor Stein—Zero—didn’t understand the cruelty of it.
Given what we knew about him now, it was easy to know he was clueless.
There were psychopaths, then there was him.
Eldritch horrors from other dimensions didn’t get the finer details of our existence.
Supra knew that when they tossed us inside and forced him to run their experiments.
“Do you blame him?” I asked.
“Holding a grudge against him is pointless. He was just another inmate.”
“Is that a yes or no?”
“I blame Supra. Do I also blame Zero?” He ran a palm down his face and groaned. “Family's as complicated as everyone makes it sound. Guess we can compete for the shittiest father award,” he grumbled.
“Oh? You think so?” I asked, genuinely curious. It was nice to bond over life-defining trauma.
“No.” He looked over at me. “Yours was worse.”
“Why’s that?”
“Mine is willing to offer me help. Yours never was,” Nemo said. I looked away. Vague discomfort squirmed in my gut. Wow, trauma bonding fail.
“You look sick. Let’s go inside,” Bree said, touching my arm. I patted my pockets, feeling the empty serum vials sliding against one another. But something else was missing.
“Where's the journal?” I asked.
“I have it.” Orson led the way down a small stone path, overgrown by greenery.
“Did you go through my pockets?” I looked between the three of them, touching the darts again.
“It fell out of your pants after the grocery store,” Nemo said. I stared at him a moment, but decided to move on when he didn't appear to be hiding anything.
In front of us was the cutest little murder cabin a serial killer could hope to call home.
It was made of dark tree trunks—I think they called it a log cabin.
The roof extended over a deck, casting it in nefarious shadows.
The roof was sunken slightly in the middle.
Knowing Orson, most people who walked into it had likely never come back out.
I stopped moving and took it in fully. It was small, but then again, Nemo would likely spend a lot of time outdoors. Plus, how many bedrooms did the group really need? After we rearranged the beds at the asylum, we generally stayed together.
An explosion of ferns choked the small yard, thwarting a good view of the deck. The white beams surrounding the two front windows and door were chipped and faded. Something about the entire place looked damp.
Everyone quietly surrounded me as I paused.
“I’m not going to fall over,” I said.
“We want to stay close after everything that’s gone on,” Bree said. Her fingers twisted with mine. They were worried I was going to what? Take off running?
“What exactly do you think is going to happen in twenty hours?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Bree said. Orson eyed me before going up the crickety wooden steps. The deck quietly screamed as he stepped on it. Leaning down, he punched numbers into a keypad. The door opened up, and a puff of dust rushed out as if opening a crypt.
“When was the last time you were here?” Bree asked, covering her nose. Orson looked shy of all things. Which was the most shocking thing that we’d experienced since leaving Verfallen … probably.
“I don’t want to say.”
“What?” Bree asked.
“It makes me sound old.”
“You are old,” Bree said in confusion. Orson’s previous embarrassment was quickly buried under narrowed eyes.
“But I like that about you!” Bree added quickly.
“It’s hot. Older men are sexy. Confident and …
experienced,” she mumbled with a blush. One awkward moment later, Orson decided to change the subject.
“Baz, you asked what we think will happen in twenty hours. I think you’ll be untouchable again.
” He pushed the door open wider and I moved past him into the house.
Blind and stumbling, I tried to find my way to a chair.
I was two seconds from giving up and lying on the floor when the woosh of curtains sounded and sunlight streamed in.
Everything was shades of brown, orange, and yellow.
The carpet looked like the rotted hide of an animal—long, furry, and blotchy patches of dark and light brown.
Which seemed to be an intentional design.
To the left was a bar countertop that caged in a small kitchen.
To the right was an open doorway to a dark hall.
I reached up. The tips of my gloved fingers brushed a textured ceiling. Compared to the asylum, it was a cave.
I sighed in relief when I saw a couch.
“I haven’t seen one of these in ages,” I groaned, rushing with what energy I had over to it.
Gravity took over as I crashed onto soft cushions.
Bree wandered over, and I grabbed her, pulling her down and reeling her into my arms. I pressed my face into her neck and nibbled. She giggled, and I gripped her tighter.
“Baz, what do you think will happen in twenty hours?” She asked.
I thought that no matter how hard they tried to keep me from running, they wouldn’t be able to stop me.
“Let’s just worry about today.” I brushed my hands down her back. I was going to miss this.